


Toffee

by TsarinaTorment



Series: International Rescue & Relief [15]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, Gordon didn't do it, Pranks, Scheming, Toffee, for once, gave myself a headache trying to work out if it was a sofa or a couch, gave up and stuck with the British naming it was simpler, irrelief
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24020515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TsarinaTorment/pseuds/TsarinaTorment
Summary: Gordon is a lover of many things.  Toffee is not one of them.
Relationships: Gordon Tracy & Grandma Tracy, Gordon Tracy & John Tracy, Gordon Tracy & Scott Tracy, John Tracy & Scott Tracy
Series: International Rescue & Relief [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671880
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gumnut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gumnut/gifts).



> A fanfiction written for #irrelief, using gumnut-logic's prompt "Toffee on the couch"

Gordon was tired. Very, very tired. By all rights, he should have stumbled to his bedroom to flop on his wonderful, soft, comfy bed, but that required tackling _stairs_ and he was too tired for that nonsense. His launch chute got him up as far as the den, so that was as far as he was going. A graceless collapse had him landing face first on a sofa.

His body connected with cushions, as expected. His face found contact with something less soft and desirable – and _sticky_.

Weariness was immediately abandoned as he lurched upright, clawing at his face in an attempt to clean it of _whatever_ someone had left on the sofa. Squinting, his fingernails came away with something brown under them, and his first instinct was to recoil in horror before the sweet scent registered.

Cautiously, he sniffed his fingers, and scowled.

Which one of his _evil_ brothers had left _half-melted toffee_ on the sofa for him to faceplant? It would have been a stroke of genius as a prank, if not for two important factors: first off, it was not Gordon's prank, and secondly, they hadn't left anything between the sticky nonsense and the cushions themselves. Even he was careful not to make a mess that would get _Grandma_ up in arms.

He didn't know which of his brothers was responsible, but Gordon smelt an accident, not a prank, if only for that fact. If even _he_ didn't dare push Grandma's buttons when it came to food on the furniture, then none of his brothers would. Now, the question was, did he ignore it and let it be someone else's problem, or did he get up and _do_ something about it?

The knowledge that if it was left to someone else, the blame might come crashing down on the resident prankster's – his – head spurred him into reluctant action. If nothing else, he could just report it to Grandma, he reasoned, yawning loudly. Yes, he'd do that. The clean-up could be done by the brother responsible.

He stumbled down the flight of stairs to the kitchen, where Grandma was almost certainly to be found, to his stomach's ongoing distress. Sure enough, arguing with the automated kitchen module again, his purple-clad grandmother was wielding a whisk in a manner that was too similar to the wooden spoon of his childhood.

"Hey, Grandma?" Interrupting her in the kitchen was a dangerous business, and already he was formulating several possible excuses to not eat anything he was offered as she turned to him.

"Hello, kid," she grinned. "Long rescu- What have you got on your face, young man?" she demanded as his toffee-covered face caught her attention.

"I think it's toffee," he groaned, making a half-hearted attempt to cover another yawn. It _had_ been a long rescue, and with Virgil off on another mission when the call had come in, and the trouble off the Australian coast, he'd had to launch from the island and complete it solo.

He didn't do solo missions often. Thunderbird Four often relied on her big green sister for transportation to rescue sites, meaning that Virgil was guaranteed to be with him, and it wasn't unusual for Thunderbird One to come a-hovering overhead, worried big brother supervising and ready with a helping cable on the off chance it might be needed. Maybe, just maybe, he was used to being able to crash out on the way home, and actually having to pilot all the way back to base was unusual enough to be an additional strain on a tired aquanaut.

"And why is there toffee on your face?" Grandma asked him, finding a cloth from somewhere and wiping at his face like he was a child. He was too tired to stop her.

"Face-planted the sofa and found someone left toffee on the cushion," he yawned.

" _Someone_?" she asked, pausing her dabbing to narrow her eyes at him.

"Wasn't me, Grandma," he mumbled in protest. "Don't like toffee. Wouldn't get the sofa sticky, either."

She scrutinised him intently for several moments before resuming her cleaning of his face. He leaned against the counter and let her.

"So who is cleaning my sofa cushions?" she asked him, and he shrugged.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Not me."

"I can see that," she chuckled. "You're asleep on your feet, kid. Up to bed with you. I'll find the culprit."

"Wanna watch," he protested, and she shook her head.

"I'm sure I can get Brains to record the hunt," she told him. "Bed, now. Unless you want supper first?"

Supper?

Gordon's body found another surge of energy, straightening up and stumbling for the stairs.

"That's okay, Grandma," he waved sleepily. "I'll eat something later."

It wasn't his record for a kitchen to bedroom flight, but it was still pretty impressive. Face-planting his bed – where he should have gone in the _first_ place, although at least now Grandma believed he hadn't done it, against whatever claims his guilty brother might make – he made no effort to undress.

"John?" he called out sleepily, and a hologram flickered into life by his bed.

"I'll record it," his brother said without prompting. "Get some shuteye while you can."

"You know whose toffee it is?" he mumbled, and John let out a short sound of amusement.

"What do you think?"

Gordon groaned, because that was either John speak for 'no, but I'm not admitting I don't know something' or, more likely considering the amusement, 'yes, but I'm bored and I'm an evil, evil brother who wants to watch and laugh' - or however John expressed his amusement, because flat-out _laughter_ was not his style (although Gordon suspected he just laughed when there was no-one to hear him, thereby preserving his image).

" _Sleep_ , Gordon," John insisted.

"Sleeping," he groaned into the pillow.

He wasn't sure what woke him, but the sun was glaring in through his window which meant it was way past time he should have been doing his morning laps, and he groaned, pushing himself up from his bed and cautiously stretching out his back. A little stiff, but nothing worse than usual.

Nothing a good swim couldn't fix.

Urgh, he was still in yesterday's clothes. Forget showering after the mission, he hadn't even shed his shirt, and the pool hadn't done anything to deserve something this gross (it suffered enough from Thunderbird One's exhaust, thank you, Scott).

Okay, shower first, then swim, then another shower. That sounded like a perfect, if belated, start to the day, provided a certain space resident didn't pipe up and send him out on a rescue.

Speaking of John, he'd been talking to him last night, he was sure of it. What was it..? He stumbled into his en suite, glared at the mirror that greeted his thoroughly dishevelled appearance, and poked at a lump of something brown that had caught in his hair.

Toffee.

The toffee!

"John?" he called, shucking well-worn and stinky clothes and lobbing them out into a dirty clothes pile by the door, ready to be well and truly shoved into the washing machine at the nearest opportunity. Clean freak he was _not_ , but Thunderbird Four was the only place he suffered foul-smelling laundry and body odour for any length of time. The hazards of research trips.

"Did you _have_ to wait until you got rid of your clothes before calling me?" his older brother sighed, ginger head flickering into view. Was it slightly weird that his brother had access to his bathroom? Probably, but rescues didn't wait for dirty squids (or flyboys, for that matter; Gordon had seen _all_ of his brothers in less clothing than he'd particularly care for during mission briefings before). Besides, it was a great place for private conversations – none of his fellow Earthlings were going to walk into his bathroom unannounced.

"Jealous?" he asked, flexing arm muscles out of habit as he stuck his tongue out. There was at least a concession that the holocam couldn't detect anything below chest height in bathrooms – whose benefit that was _actually_ for, who knew. It wasn't like it was nothing any of them had seen before (individual bathrooms was an Island luxury – they'd been sharing bathrooms and even _baths_ at times in Kansas).

"Of what, your height?" John quipped. Gordon narrowed his eyes at him. "I have something you want, Gordon. Don't try it."

So that was a yes to the unasked question: Grandma had found the culprit, and there was a recording ready and waiting for Gordon's viewing pleasure. He looked at the floating head expectantly, hand on hip as he waited for it.

"You're going to watch it in the _shower_?" John asked, before shaking his head with a sigh. "How am I related to you?"

"Because we both take entertainment from our brothers ending up on Grandma's bad side?" Gordon offered. John acknowledged the point. "So now that we've agreed that we are, in fact, brothers, can I have that video?"

"One last thing." Gordon groaned. Maybe asking John to record it had been a bad idea. Maybe he should have trusted Grandma to get Brains or MAX to do it for him. Who knew what he was going to have to pay John for this privilege?

Aw, who was he kidding? No matter who recorded it, John was going to end up with monopoly on who could watch it. He was sneaky like that.

"Two, in fact." Gordon groaned more loudly. Still, waiting was always worse, and unlike certain _other_ brothers, John didn't have the sadistic streak of making him _beg_ – much, anyway. He derived his amusement in other factors. Like playing brothers off against each other… Gordon was starting to get an inkling what one of those two things might be.

"Okay, what are they?"

"First is a message from Grandma: She's got him on laundry duty for the next week, including all of the sofa covers, and says to be creative with your revenge."

"Revenge? _Moi_?" Gordon _certainly_ hadn't been planning to exact a little revenge for an accident that got _toffee on his face_. Certainly not.

"Secondly," John continued as though he hadn't said anything – he was good at that, was John – "You did not get this footage from me, nor does any other assistance that might appear during your endeavours over the next week have anything to do with me."

Ooh, Johnny-boy wanted to get _involved_. Gordon's face split into a grin. This was going to be _fun_. He hadn't had a team-up with the second eldest, so-called 'responsible' one, in a while.

"What did our culprit do to you?" he asked. The grin he got back was maybe a little chilling, as he was reminded that the current resident prankster was not the _original_ resident prankster.

"Who said they did anything?"

That proved it. John was bored. Gordon almost felt sorry for the brother who left toffee lying around. Almost. His face was still phantom-sticky.

"Play the video, big bro," he grinned, stepping into the shower.

Grandma on the hunt. He hadn't seen that in a while (without being the prey, anyway).

It was almost disappointing, how easily she collared the perpetrator. She'd put on a show – one Gordon appreciated – of interrogating each and every non-Gordon Island resident (and even John, although both parties had been too busy trying not to show their amusement for that to be anything but staged), but it was clear even from the very beginning that she Knew.

The final confrontation was pitiful. A confession, right off the bat? Clearly his brother had no understanding of how the world worked. Confessing to a crime of that magnitude did _not_ reduce your sentence one iota, which a crestfallen face at a week of laundry duty showed some belated awareness of.

It did not escape Gordon's attention that at no point had his unfortunate encounter with the toffee been mentioned. Brothers had mentioned his name, of course (even _Brains_ , oh ye of little faith), but Grandma had expertly deflected them away from his scent. Oh to watch a master – or mistress, as it may be – at work.

Gordon hadn't done a prank with _Grandma_ as an ally since he was a very small child, imagination limited to switching the salt and sugar. With John and Grandma secretly supporting him, the possibilities were _endless_.

But really, there was only one way to start this.

"John," he sing-songed, stepping out of the bathroom after towelling himself dry and pulling on some underwear – if he wanted to pull this off, he was going to need to _keep_ John on his side, which meant keeping him sweet and not playing the usual obnoxious younger brother beyond keeping up the charade.

"Yes, Gordon?" John's hologram appeared by his bed, this time almost full length and in an almost sitting position.

"How might a squid locate Scott's toffee stash without the assistance of an eye in the sky?"

He hadn't even known Scott _had_ a toffee stash until the confession. Crafty biggest brother. Crafty.

Not crafty enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a chance this might get more chapters added at some point, but for now it'll sit here as a oneshot.
> 
> IRRelief is an amazing idea and bless Gumnut for coming up with it! For those that don't know, it's a collection of prompts anyone can add to and use on tumblr, with a focus on fluff, to give us something to do while we're stuck indoors. [Full details are here](https://nutty.gumnut.net/irrelief/)


	2. Chapter 2

Scott didn't know what he'd done to deserve this, but some higher power had clearly decided that Earth was not fond of him, presumably due to some transgression or other he was utterly unaware of.

He specified _Earth_ because he'd spent much of the previous day in space with his youngest brother, and there everything had (rarely) gone to plan. The space shuttle in distress – a cargo load heading for Mars – had been out of fuel after stray space junk had punctured their fuel tank, stranding them about halfway between Earth and Mars. It had been child's play to fix – literally, as Alan went EVA to patch up the leak and set up the fuel line between the red Thunderbird and the grey space vessel (why were they always grey? Was International Rescue really the only organisation that had found a way to make spacecraft _not grey_? Even Thunderbird Five was partially gold).

Scott had been little more than a passenger on the rescue – he wouldn't say that was how he _liked_ it, but watching Alan handle a simple rescue solo definitely went a little way towards soothing his nerves about his youngest brother out in space. He'd pushed a button to get the fuel moving from Three to the other ship, but that was about the extent of his contribution. As Alan quipped, glowing from his success, he might as well have stayed at home.

He _should_ have stayed at home, it turned out several hours later when Grandma was standing, arms crossed, in the den upon their arrival. Alan had declared that he had the fuel to stay up a little longer, and with John confirming no other distress calls in space or in need of Thunderbird One, Scott had been unable to find an argument against Alan's gathering up of more dangerous space junk and dumping it "where space junk goes to die!". Alan's words, not his. It was a good thing to do, and showed Alan's growing maturity compared to the days of complaining cleaning up space junk was grunt work.

But elbow deep in laundry, he really wished he'd just stayed at home. Then, his half-eaten toffee might not have fallen out of a pocket as he'd listened to the brief before heading to gear-up and melted its way into the fabric for Grandma to discover. She had _not_ been happy, especially as messy food was banned from the den after a few too many similar incidents in the past. He wasn't entirely sure when toffee had been added to that list, but Grandma was adamant that it was – had even shown him the list, with toffee up there with ice cream in cones (he remembered what had prompted _that_ one well) and sherbet (Gordon had thought they should celebrate Lady Penelope's puppy with its namesake… they were _still_ finding white specks every so often during cleaning) – and he'd been forced to make an apology and accept the chore of laundry for a week.

That included, unusually, but perhaps fitting for the punishment, all furniture fabric as well. All week. If he wanted to join his younger brothers in making a mess of the sofas, he could spend a week appreciating her struggles keeping it clean, Grandma had told him firmly. Privately, Scott thought that was a _little_ unfair, especially as he knew she only washed the fabric once a month, but he had enough self-preservation instincts to not question it out loud.

If that was it, he might not think the world was out to get him. Unfortunately, that was _not_ it, and it revolved entirely around toffee.

Somehow, toffee had ended up in the washing machine. Specifically, he discovered that it had been in some familiar jean pockets. Clearly, not _all_ of the toffee had fallen out of his pocket after all, and he'd missed the stub still remaining until the washing machine had ground to a protesting stop and water started leaking out of the pipes.

Grandma's tongue had been sharp over that mistake – _you can pilot the most advanced planes in the world but you can't remember to empty pockets for laundry_ – and Virgil hadn't been much happier when he'd been called up to help Scott rescue what he could of both laundry and machine. Thoroughly scolded from both angles, he had rather sheepishly been forced to resort to hand-washing everything.

Toffee was delicious, but he never wanted to leave any in his pockets ever again. It was almost worst than bloodstains to remove – scratch that, it _was_ worse than bloodstains. At least Scott, unfortunately, had experience with that one. Toffee just _stuck_ , and even when the lump of food itself was gone, the stickiness lingered.

It took him about an hour to rescue his jeans, the stiff denim particularly attractive to the adhesive properties of toffee.

"Woah, Virg wasn't kidding when he said you'd made a mess."

Gordon's invasion of the laundry room was entirely unwanted, especially when Scott made the mistake of turning to glare at him. In his brother's arms was a pile of dirty laundry, and it was with a sinking feeling he looked back at the clothes already soaked through and ready for a final rinse and realised the lack of anything particularly _loud_.

He groaned.

"You couldn't have brought that lot down earlier?" he despaired. Gordon shrugged apologetically.

"I overslept this morning," he explained – Scott recalled the unusualness of Gordon _not_ in the pool when he had breakfast earlier, a fact pushed from his mind by a broken washing machine. "Yesterday's rescue was a beast."

What had Gordon been doing yesterday? Something near Australia, he'd heard over the comms.

"You didn't sleep in _that_ late," he argued.

"Well, no," Gordon admitted. "But when I got to the den one of the sofas had lost all its cushions and Alan told me you were on laundry duty."

 _There_ was the mischievous glint in amber eyes Scott had been waiting for the moment his younger brother had made his presence known. No doubt, Gordon had decided to play up the _annoying_ aspect of being a little brother to dump his clothes in the basket for washing after he'd started.

"Oh, and I'm meeting Penelope tomorrow," the blond menace said airily. "She likes that shirt of mine."

Scott growled at him, swiped the dumped clothes, and threw them into the mix.

"Thanks, Scotty!"

A blinding grin that was far too innocent to be innocent, and he was gone. Scott stared at the water in front of him and idly considered shoving his head in it. Now that Gordon had set a precedent – and yes, he shouldn't have let Gordon get away with it but him and Penelope was something Scott didn't dare interfere with one way or another – he was going to be getting that from at least two brothers, if not all _three_ of the ones on Earth, depending how annoyed Virgil was about the washing machine.

What did he do to deserve this? Surely a dropped chunk of toffee wasn't worth all this?

Gordon's additional laundry was thankfully toffee-free, having escaped the earlier disaster, but it still forced him to spend an additional fifteen minutes or so scrubbing them before they could join the rest in the rinse.

John summoned him halfway through hanging them up to dry the traditional way – no washing machine meant no dryer – and he traipsed up to the den, where Virgil gave him a dark look and the blonds gave him a contrasting bright and sunny one. They'd been playing outside from the looks of it, although where, on their tropical island that hadn't seen rain in several weeks, they'd found _mud_ he didn't want to know. Virgil's sleeve was covered with what looked like gunk from repairing the washing machine, and Scott inwardly withered at the knowledge _he_ had to wash all of that later.

His earlier predictions about three brothers making the laundry hell for a week seemed to already be coming true, and it was only the first day. Surviving the week was going to be hell, and he wondered – not for the first, and almost certainly not the last time – what he'd done to deserve _this_.

At least one brother wasn't around to torment him with additional laundry. John was amused at his plight – that much was obvious even through a hologram – but up in orbit there was little he could do to add to it, much to Scott's private relief. There were times he could be worse than Gordon, in his own way.

"There's been a mudslide in the Pyrenees," John began. "A small village has been partially buried and the local authorities are stuck on the other side of the slip." Scott squashed the dread at the word _mud_ and snapped into gear.

"I hope you two aren't fed up with mud," he quipped to the youngest two as he headed for his launch chute. The laughs he got back were lack-luster – none of them liked mudslides. "Both of you, go with Virgil in Thunderbird Two. We'll need all hands on this one." That meant four muddy uniforms to be washed by hand because the washing machine was out of action.

He pushed that thought aside for later. Rescue now, unpleasant chores later.

Maybe that should have been unpleasant rescue now, unpleasant chores later. Scott always tried to look on the bright side of rescues – the moment he started thinking of them as a _chore_ would be the moment International Rescue failed, after all – but there were some that really just knew how to drag a guy down.

Uncooperative authorities, another mudslide halfway through the rescue narrowly avoiding burying Gordon and plastering him with mud, and more _mud_ in his cockpit on the way home was one such scenario. Of course, the knowledge that the washing machine was still broken and that four thoroughly brown uniforms would need cleaning by his hand thanks to Grandma's rather severe punishment didn't help matters at all. He also needed to make sure One was fit to fly before the next call came in, and couldn't rely on any help for that because Two _also_ needed a clean (arguably moreso), and as the bigger ship, Virgil would no doubt collar everyone available for her.

At least he had Brains and MAX for help until the slower Thunderbird got home, and between the three of them, they made a pretty good team. It was hardly the first time a Thunderbird had come home more brown than her painted colours, after all. Brains, bless the man, had a high-power jet was designed to do most of the heavy external work, and had deployed it as soon as he vacated the cockpit and grappled down to the hangar floor. No point in getting changed out of his muddy uniform until the mud was gone from his Thunderbird, after all. That would just mean _more_ laundry.

Still, it was a good two hours of scrubbing the parts the high-power jet wash couldn't reach – inside and out – not helped by the call for help from MAX once Thunderbird Two rumbled into her hangar leaving them a robot short, before Scott could leave his once-again gleaming Thunderbird and traipse into the locker room. Strictly speaking, he _should_ go and help his brothers with the behemoth that was Thunderbird Two, but his own uniform was going to take forever to de-mud, and if he made a head start on it now, he might even be vaguely finished by the time three more were added to the pile.

It was with only a little guilt that he washed up and pulled on civvies before sending his dirty uniform up the chute to the laundry room and trekking up the hundreds of steps to rejoin it in the room he suspected he was going to be seeing a _lot_ of over the next week. Younger brothers were a real menace at times, although he still wouldn't trade them for the world.

Even if they were less than sympathetic, and indeed a little too _happy_ to be dropping off dirty uniforms several hours later.

"I'll see about the washing machine in a bit," Virgil at least had the grace to promise, even if the effect was somewhat lessened by the matching grins on all three faces. What with the chute to deliver the uniforms for them, there was absolutely no reason for any of them to have come to the room other than to torment him, and the youngest two were sent away irritably, and Virgil with only a little more tact.

Thankfully, once wiped free of mud, John was willing to check that all their built-in electrics were still functioning as they should, and it was simple enough to chuck them into another chute which would return them to their storage, ready for the next use. Brains had made them easily washable for a reason, and was fast becoming Scott's favourite resident of the island.

When he finally made it to the den and collapsed into the desk chair, ready to tackle the paperwork, he discovered two things. The first was that John had done the entire rescue report, making him Scott's favourite brother.

The second was that someone had left some half-melted toffee on the seat of the chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several months later, I'm back with the next instalment! I still haven't finished writing the fic so I can't guarantee frequent updates, but this chapter, at least, has been sat around for a while so I figured it was time to let it loose.
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> Tsari


	3. Chapter 3

The explosion of expletives from his eldest brother were clearly audible even from where Gordon was floating in the pool. It didn't take a genius to surmise that Scott had just discovered the toffee on the chair, and probably by sitting on it.

As far as pranks went, it was simple but effective. No-one had been in the room when Gordon had slipped the small chunk of toffee, warmed in the microwave under his watchful eye and Grandma's carefully blind one, onto the seat just after dumping his mud-lathered uniform off in Scott's despairing arms. Barring Grandma, none of the island residents had any idea that the toffee hadn't just slipped out of Scott's pocket earlier a la the first incident style, and both Grandma and their ever-watchful Eye in the Sky were firmly on his team. It had been John that had struck a conversation up with Alan to keep him out of the way, after all.

Grandma's voice carried clearly from the kitchen as she hollered up at Scott about minding his language. There was the vague threat of washing his mouth out with soap in there, and Gordon could well imagine the look on Scott's face as he called an apology back down.

He suspected Scott was already sick of soap. The washing machine had been a stroke of genius, even if he did say so himself. A little bit of toffee in Scott's jean pockets wasn't even suspicious, not when toffee in his pocket had been the start of it all. Add in an unaware Alan proving him the perfect alibi, and there was nothing to even suggest it wasn't an accident. Still, there was revenge and there was cruelty, and even Gordon had limits. Virgil would get the machine repaired by the end of the day, as long as no more rescues cropped up, and Gordon wasn't about to keep crippling it.

Scott wouldn't be the only one getting suspicious if it _kept_ breaking, and he had no plans to get Virgil on his back, especially as his older brother was clearly annoyed about having to fix it the first time. If he realised it was intentional rather than accidental, well, that would probably be the end of a squid. No, Gordon had to keep things fluid, unsuspicious. Neither John nor Grandma were providing ideas, but as long as they kept providing the means and alibis (when an innocent Alan didn't do the job for him), he had a week to prank with his brother with no fear of retribution.

Scott's toffee stash would last a week, easily. Even if he turned to it as comfort food. Gordon hoped he did; it would be much easier to pull off his plan if Scott continued to eat the stuff. He had John on Scott-watch for that exact reason. True to form, John hadn't _told_ him where the stash was, but he had suggested where a _really good hiding place_ away from younger brothers might be, and sure enough, Gordon had found a whole mountain of the stuff there.

It was a literal mountain. Gordon had no idea how Scott's teeth hadn't all rotted yet. His ached just looking at it.

Above him, it sounded as though Grandma had gone to investigate the cause of Scott's language, because she was still berating him for it. As tempting as it was to go up and see the scene with his own eyes, Gordon had been a prankster long enough to know that returning to the scene of the crime automatically made him suspicious. Content that Grandma had it all in hand, he rolled over onto his front and continued his laps.

He eventually left his beloved water at a call for dinner. Reluctantly, of course – the call had come from Grandma, and just because she was helping him prank Scott didn't mean she'd suddenly become a competent cook. Unfortunately, the pool was right by the kitchen, and with his grandmother standing just under the eaves, there was no way for him to pretend he hadn't heard the call.

At least none of his other Earthbound brothers were escaping, either. John was invariably munching on some dehydrated just-add-water feast above their heads, and not for the first time Gordon thought it thoroughly unfair that he had the _better_ deal. Dehydrated food was not supposed to be better than good old fashioned home cooking.

Maybe that was why Dad had spent so much time in space. Gordon could hardly blame him.

None of them even dared to hazard a guess at the name of the concoction on their plates, but with Grandma seated firmly at the foot of the table and watching them all closely, they had no choice but to tentatively take their first bites before simultaneously reaching for large mugs of their preferred drink.

Alan mumbled something uncomplimentary into his juice, and Grandma sent him a sharp look. Virgil chose that moment to speak, and Gordon knew the timing wasn't coincidental.

"I've got the washing machine fixed," he said, sending Scott a glare. "Don't break it again."

"I don't plan to," Scott groaned in response, throwing back his squash to get rid of the taste from his latest mouthful. "I'd like to see something other than laundry this week."

"Speaking of the laundry," Grandma interrupted. "I want that chair spotless, young man."

"What chair?" Alan asked, fixing their eldest brother with a suspicious stare when he groaned. "Is one of the chairs dirty again?"

"Some toffee appears to have found its way onto the desk chair," Grandma explained. "Your brother found it by sitting in it." Virgil stiffened.

"If that washing machine experiences another death by toffee, I am _not_ fixing it," he threatened. Scott sighed, running a hand through his hair. He looked tired, not that Gordon blamed him after that hell of a rescue. They were _all_ tired from trudging through mud and then cleaning it off of Thunderbird Two once they got home.

"I'll handwash them," he promised. "I have no idea how toffee even _got_ there."

"You mean it didn't fall out of your pocket this time?" Alan chipped in.

"I didn't _have_ any in my pocket for it to fall out, Alan," Scott defended himself. Alan shrugged as though that wasn't a factor that needed considering.

"You had some in your pocket yesterday, maybe it fell out then?"

Gordon watched a look of uncertainty flicker across Scott's face, before his shoulders slumped.

"I guess that's possible," he admitted.

"You're quiet, Gordo," Virgil commented, and he looked at him.

"Huh?"

"Something wrong?" Toffee incident(s) forgotten, Scott was straight into smothering older brother mode. Annoying, except when it was useful. He poked at the concoction on his plate dubiously.

"I don't think I feel too good." It was hardly a lie; he loved his grandmother but he could also _really_ do without her cooking.

"Try a few more mouthfuls, dear," the wicked witch of the kitchen said. "Some good food should help."

"I don't see that here," Alan muttered under his breath, but Gordon gave her a patented Believable Fake Smile and prodded at his plate some more, reluctantly forcing himself to eat a few more bites. She beamed at him, and he gave her a polite smile back, all too aware that his alliance with her was just as tentative as his alliance with John, and therefore relied on keeping her sweet.

Which, right now, meant consuming as much of her latest cooking disaster as he could stomach.

Scott – oldest, bravest, sacrificial lamb on behalf of his brothers – was the first to cave, begging off on a full stomach and a reminder of the jeans he now had to handwash. His plate was mostly empty, although when he'd managed to stuff that much in his mouth Gordon had no idea, and after a moment of silent contemplation on Grandma's side he was given permission to wash his plate up and leave.

Gordon loved it when his brothers made things so easy for him. He shoved the concoction on his plate around for another few minutes, occasionally taking mouthfuls, before putting his cutlery down with a groan.

"Sorry, Grandma, I don't think I'm going to eat any more." She peered at him closely before standing up and walking around the table to get to him. He wasn't expecting her to press a hand to his forehead, and jumped when she made contact.

"Well your temperature's normal," she mused, and inwardly he groaned. _Please let me leave the table, Grandma!_ "But if you're really not up to eating, off to bed with you." _Yes! Grandma you are The Best!_

"Sorry," he said out loud, standing up slowly and picking his plate up. "I'll just get this cleared up-"

She whisked it out of his hands.

"I said _bed_ , young man," she scolded. "I can do your dishes for one evening, but I'll be up to check on you once I'm done and I don't want to see you out of bed." She steered him towards the stairs and, once out of sight of his brothers, gave him a wink. He grinned back, before starting the climb to the bedrooms – and, more importantly right now – Scott's toffee stash.

Having Grandma for an ally made a real difference to pranking.

He kept up the pretence all the way to his room, just in case he met Scott. He didn't, but Gordon had long since learnt not to take that for granted. Shutting himself in his bathroom, he called John.

As predicted, the ginger was munching away on cardboard-flavoured food that Gordon would do a _lot_ to have instead of his grandmother's cooking.

"Scott's in the laundry room," his brother told him without preamble. "Brains and MAX are in their lab, and Grandma has Virgil and Alan pinned in the kitchen." Not for the first time, Gordon was pleased Kayo was off doing agent-y things with Lady Penelope for the week. Her allegiance was harder to secure than John's, and even when he had it she was liable to tell on him to Scott or Virgil at any time. Sneaking past her was also much harder. "I'd estimate you have five minutes before any of them move from their current locations."

"Roger that," he grinned. "It'll take me two."

Scott's hiding place was brilliant in its simplicity. It was both somewhere no-one, not even _Gordon,_ would think to look, but so easily accessible that the chances of being caught in the act of retrieving some were close enough to nil – barring John and his All-Seeing Eyeness. Unfortunately for Scott, now that John had Not-Shared it with Gordon, those same factors made it child's play to steal from.

Gordon was careful not to take too much – Scott was the sort of person to know _exactly_ how much toffee he had, and would very quickly put two and two together if toffee kept appearing in places he didn't remember having any and he noticed it vanishing from his stash. Besides, too much and the game would be up before it even began. He took a couple of small pieces from near the back, ones with identical wrappers to many others. Scott would have to be _particularly_ observant and calculating to notice the disappearance of those.

Prizes obtained, he found his way back to his room and connected with John again.

"Grandma's on her way up," his brother warned, and despite having Grandma as an ally, Gordon figured it would be best to throw on some pyjamas and slink into bed regardless – after depositing the toffee in his bathroom cabinet inside one of his boxes of tablets.

Empty tablet boxes that had not yet reached their expiry date made _fantastic_ hiding places for small objects. With the prescription declaring them for the sole use of one Gordon Cooper Tracy, none of his brothers had any cause to ever touch them. Not even John knew about _that_ hiding place. Probably. You could never be too careful with the Eye in the Sky.

"You decent, kid?" Grandma asked, knocking on the door. John flickered out of sight, and Gordon made a noise that was probably an affirmative from under the covers. She took it as such and his door hissed open. Footsteps crossed his floor, and the bed dipped near his head. He looked up to see her grinning back down at him. "As you're in bed, I assume you've done what you needed to?"

He grinned back at her.

"Yup," he admitted.

"Good, good," she said. "I must say, it's a nice change to see your brother away from that desk more. Toffee or not, he was starting to stick to it."

Gordon laughed and she ruffled his hair.

"Now get some shut eye. Your brothers will have questions if you're out and about after I sent you to bed, and with you boys' job, it's something you're all lacking anyway. If I catch you out of bed again, I'll be dragging you back in here by your ear, got it?"

"Yes, Grandma," he agreed; sleep _was_ nice, even if he'd rather be doing a few more laps in the pool. Ah well, sometimes sacrifices needed to be made in the name of pranking.

"I'll see you later," she told him, kissing his forehead – he made a face – before leaving the room.

So, Grandma didn't want to see him out and about? Well, that was what John was for.

"Hey, John?" he called once the door was shut. His brother appeared immediately, and Gordon suspected he'd never actually left, just culled visual. "Let me know when I have another five minutes free on this floor?"

"Sure thing," his brother agreed. "What's your next plan?"

Gordon grinned at him.

"You know the story of the Princess and the Pea?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of you who follow me on tumblr might be aware that I've just returned to uni to start a new degree - preparation for that was a large reason for the lack of fics, but as I'm doing a Master's degree my studies are going to be rather intensive so I can't promise any regularity with updates for any of my fics for the time being (I have some unposted backlog but I'm trying to space it so we have slow updates for a while rather than many now then none for a year!). That said, I'm still around, my tumblr is still open and I'm always up for a chat.


	4. Chapter 4

It was the second night in a row that Gordon had gone to bed early. Begging off from Grandma's dinners was hardly unusual – Scott himself was guilty of that, as were all of his brothers – but getting himself sent to bed when the sun had yet to touch the ocean was something Gordon usually evaded. Despite Grandma's assurances that he would be fine after a good night's sleep, Scott was disturbed enough by the uncharacteristic behaviour to check in on his younger brother.

When Gordon did uncharacteristic things, that meant one of two things: he was ill, or a prank was brewing. Scott didn't particularly care for either of those, especially for as long as he was on laundry duty and the fallout of a prank would get added to his workload.

"Gordon?" he called, knocking on the aquanaut's door. A muffled groan was his response, and he took that to mean 'come in', despite the fact his younger brother _probably_ meant something more along the lines of 'go away'. The door opened easily and he stepped inside to find his brother bundled up under his blanket. He was lying on his side, curled around his stomach, and Scott crossed the room in several, quick, strides to crouch down beside him.

"You shouldn't lay like that," he reminded him, touching Gordon's shoulder gently. Amber eyes opened and regarded him balefully.

"I'll lay however I want," the younger Tracy grumbled. "What did she even _do_ to dinner today?" Scott supressed his own feelings of nausea at the recollection and offered him a commiserating smile.

"I have no idea," he admitted. "But stomach ache or not, you'll make your back worse if you sleep like that."

Gordon let out a groan of protest, but Scott would not be deterred, gently poking and prodding him until he unfurled from his foetal position and straightened his spine.

"You'll thank me when you get up," he reminded him, and Gordon let out disgruntled mutterings that consisted of a flippant _yeah, yeah_ , and something that sounded suspiciously like _smother hen._ Scott shook his head fondly, before lightly mussing blond hair. It was crisp from too much chlorine, as per usual. Not quite so usual for Gordon not to wash it out before bed, though. "And don't forget to wash your hair in the morning." He got another round of _yeah, yeah_ s and _smother hen_ , and chuckled. "Sleep well."

A simple case of stomach upset didn't require a constant vigil – it had, once upon a time, but then Grandma had become head chef and minor stomach aches became commonplace. None of his brothers permitted him to fuss over that, so long as it _remained_ minor, and with the frequency Scott would never have time for anything else if he did. Therefore, it was with a fond smile and barely any reluctance that Scott left Gordon to his misery. If he was still bad in the morning, then Scott would worry; Grandma's cooking rarely left anyone incapacitated for long – a small mercy.

Seeing Gordon all snuggled up in bed put him in longing mind for his own. What with the washing machine packing in, all the handwashing required, _and_ the mudslide rescue – with more handwashing required afterwards – Scott was quite tempted to give up on the day and hide under his own covers until morning. Unfortunately, duty called and he reluctantly traipsed back down to the desk to face the paperwork. John might have done the rescue report, saving him one hell of a battle to recall everything that had happened in that mud-covered nightmare, but Tracy Industries had their own paperwork to be completed.

With the chair cover still hanging up to dry, the desk was an unattractive place to sit, however, and Scott allowed himself the small vice of picking up the laptop and collapsing into Alan's pilot seat to get the work done. Loading up the metaphorical pile, Scott was pleasantly surprised to find there was less there than he remembered. Oh, that approval should still have been sent out the previous day – and that one, too – but there was less outstanding work to do than he'd thought.

He might actually get to sleep in his poor, neglected bed tonight. That was a motivating thought, and he tackled the first in the stack with vigour, startling Alan who entered the room with his virtual headset.

"Uhh… Scott?"

He waved him over.

"Go ahead; I don't have much work to do."

Alan's look of uncertainty morphed into one of glee, and he air punched. "Hell yeah! Cavern Quest Final Chamber here I come! Again."

Scott chuckled at his enthusiasm, fondly remembering when he had the free time to play video games as a teenager. It was always good to see that being a part of International Rescue hadn't stifled that freedom for Alan. Unfortunately, his freedom for that sort of thing was long gone, and wouldn't come back as long as he had a backlog of paperwork to do, so with a final fond look at his brother swinging an imaginary weapon and declaring challenges to Blagworts – whatever those were – he returned to the laptop and work.

Despite being less than he thought, it still took him the better part of three hours to clear all the ones he was supposed to have returned by then; he glowered at one merrily telling him it was due in 8 hours – stupid timezones – before dismissing it for _later_. The moon was high in the sky, the villa taking on the reddish hue it often did in the late evening. Alan had retreated to his bedroom at some point, maybe an hour ago although Scott hadn't checked the time, and it was with great delight that Scott realised it was before midnight.

He _could_ make a start on that next group of paperwork and maybe even get some of it done on time – a momentous occasion that would probably give the secretary and board of directors a heart attack – or he could go to bed.

Memories of Gordon comfortably snuggled under a blanket several hours earlier won. He'd save his employees the heart attack and get some sleep. Barring paperwork taking less time than usual, the day had been pretty awful and actually getting to relax in his sorely neglected bed sounded nothing short of heavenly.

He sent a suspicious eye to John's portrait, half-expecting a midnight emergency (midnight _here_ , probably a perfectly respectable mid-afternoon in the danger zone), but his brother didn't appear and he unceremoniously shoved the laptop back in the desk before dimming the lights and making a beeline for his room.

It was, predictably, just as he'd left it. He toyed with the idea of a shower before bed, but decided against it. A shower was likely to wake him up, and that was the last thing he needed right then. He made do with kicking off his shoes and tucking them in their little corner of the room before vanishing into the bathroom to perform the required evening ablutions and shrugging on some sleepwear.

From there, it was a perfectly simple matter to send a sleepy call to John letting him know he was turning in for the night, worm his way under the blanket, and let the sandman visit.

A shrill ringing jerked him awake, and with a groan he rolled over to swipe at the alarm clock controls on his bedside table, only to freeze. All noisy alarms were immediately forgotten at the sensation of something sticky against his leg, and with a hopeless prayer that it was _not_ what he thought it was, a tentative peeling back of the blankets revealed melted toffee gluing him to his bedsheet.

How the _hell_ had that got _there_?

A pounding on his door jerked him back to the present.

"Shut that thing up before it wakes the bear!" Clearly Gordon was recovered from last night's dinner and back to his usual habits, as Scott had thought he would be. "Scott!"

With a groan he reached out for the controls once again and swiped the off command. The shrill ringing was replaced by a phantom one in his ears and he shook his head to clear it before regarding the brown mess on his leg and sheet with something that might have resembled despair, although he'd deny it if anyone came in and saw it. Certainly the moisture in his eyes was typical morning yawn-induced liquid and nothing to do with tears of frustration.

_More_ laundry, and he hated bed linen anyway. With his promise to Virgil about no more toffee in the washing machine, he was also going to have to wash it _by hand_ until all traces of toffee were gone before he could bundle it in the machine to finish the job. There went any free time that morning.

The toffee on his leg was at least easier to deal with, and he was glad he hadn't taken an evening shower as he threw himself under the warm water with vigour, scrubbing at the sticky patch on his leg forcefully and wincing as a few hairs parted company when the sticky stuff peeled away. Cleaning himself, however, was the easy bit. Somehow he had to get his sheet down to the laundry room without getting collared by anyone else.

There was a morning growth of stubble on his face but he ignored it for the moment, throwing on his clothes and stripping the sheet from his bed. Once the fabric was bundled up into a ball – toffee-smeared section carefully away from the rest of the fabric so it didn't spread – it was the not so simple case of getting to the laundry room.

He was well aware what taking bed linen down to the laundry room first thing in the morning looked like.

The first hallway was cleared, Gordon splashing away down in the pool below and Grandma making threatening noises in the kitchen. Neither of his other brothers had left their rooms, and barring an emergency call, _wouldn't_ for some time. As long as John didn't pick the wrong moment to check in, he'd be fine.

"Oh, m-morning, Scott!"

He'd forgotten about Brains. How had he forgotten about Brains? Behind the engineer, MAX watched him curiously for a moment before letting out a sound far too reminiscent of a wolf whistle for Scott's liking.

"Uh, morning, Brains," he greeted, hoping his cheeks weren't flushing as the older man took in the sight of the bundled up sheet with a raised eyebrow. "Toffee, again," he admitted, hoping the engineer was removed enough from usual social conventions to not start drawing the same assumptions his brothers would.

"O-oh, I see. C-carry on, then." With a little wave, Brains continued towards the den – why was he heading there, why was he out of his lab? Scott returned the wave and continued his advance to the laundry room, only to be caught up short as he overheard Brains mutter "I-is that what they're c-calling it n-now, MAX?"

Determined _not_ to flush, Scott barrelled through the laundry room door and shut it behind him firmly.

"Everything alright there, Scott?"

John was floating in front of him, arms crossed and one eyebrow lifted in amusement as he glanced at the fabric in Scott's arms. Scott groaned.

"This is not what it looks like," he protested, and John smirked.

"Clearly, because it looks like melted toffee but you wouldn't be bright red if it was really toffee, would you?"

The bundled sheet sailed through the hologram as Scott hurled it at his infuriating, know-it-all younger brother's projection.

"Shut up, John," he muttered, retrieving the fabric and dumping it in the sink. "I'm not bright red."

"Hmm, must be a problem with the colour filters on the hologram, then," John mused. "Because you look it to me."

"Then go fix your holoprojector and leave me in peace," Scott snapped.

"F.A.B." And he was gone, leaving Scott with a sticky sheet and a sinking feeling that today was also not going to be a good day.

With a sigh he scrubbed at the toffee, determined to get the sheet de-toffee'd so he could put it in the machine before the rest of his brothers found out. Or Grandma, who might at least not jump to immature conclusions but would give him _another_ tongue-lashing about leaving toffee lying around.

An hour later, Gordon was wolfing down something Scott suspected Grandma didn't know about for breakfast – it looked suspiciously celery-crunch-bar-green – as he entered the kitchen, laptop in hand. That paperwork with a time limit of eight hours to go before he went to bed was now due, and he should probably get it done while he had some downtime.

"No work at the breakfast table," Grandma scolded, appearing from nowhere and shutting the device before Scott could properly register what it said. "And Gordon, snacks are not breakfast. Have a pancake."

Scott didn't hear Gordon's response, too busy staring at his now closed laptop.

The paperwork due this morning hadn't been there.


End file.
